An ad for Laurentian Soft Drinks 1927.
As I write Milk and Watermy play about 1927 Montreal, using my French Canadian grandfather Jules Crepeau and my husband's anglo grandfather, Thomas Wells, as characters, I've had to adjust a key element.
The play takes place outside a 'dance club' after hours, that is after midnight. The two are awaiting the possible arrival of the Prince of Wales, David...
Tom, the salesman, has brought some of his company's sodas. He explains to Jules that mixed drinks are all the rage now, due to Prohibition.
But yesterday I visited the site of the Quebec National Assembly, where in 1926, someone asks about the number of liquor licenses given out in Montreal in 1925.
The figures, 309 app. 255 taverns, a 50 hotels and 4 restaurants.
And then it hit me, dance halls didn't have licenses. Or cafes. That's where the illegal trade in Montreal happened. That's why you could have the morality squad confiscate liquor from a club in the morning and sell it back in the evening at a big mark up.
The liquor control board did its own marking up. From an article I read (NYT) a 17 dollar case of whiskey ended up costing 56 dollars to the buyer. (Oddly, the board was trying to start up their own restaurants. An MNA asks how this is going: the answer, very poorly. The Restaurants (4 of them) were losing money big time.)
Even in Quebec, public drinking was a MALE thing, taverns for the working class, private clubs for the wealthy.
It was until the 70's, when they started up brasseries.
Of course, women in Quebec were allowed to drink at home. At dinner parties. As Jules' wife, Maria Roy, did. (There always has been a stigma about women 'drinking alone.' At least until Bridget Jones. Well, even Bridget Jones.) I think Tom's wife, May Fair, poured herself booze whenever she felt like it. She was a big drinker. Or she sipped her whiskey out of flasks, otherwise tucked into her bedclothes.
I have on hand part of the Crepeau's crystal collection. I use the giant water glasses for my wine, which I often drink while alone, snuggled up on the couch with my dogs and cats watching Bridget Jones Diary... because the wine glass is pathetically small. (I only had four water glasses to start, and I've broken two already, and one other is slightly cracked. That's what happens when you use heirloom stuff.)
Hey, it just occurred to me. I'm probably drinking out of glasses Mayor Martin, and other important civic figures, drank out of. This was their fancy set.
In the 20's, women drank 9 percent wine from tiny glasses. Today, we women drink 13 percent wine from huge glasses. ( A looming health issue, some say.) The tiny glass is for sherry I guess.
(PS, in a 1926 Canadian Jewish Times I see that a German Restaurant had a grand opening with a 10 course meal served to 100 guests, including my grandfather and grandmother and Mayor Martin and wife.)
